Chapter 6: Kick Them All Out!
The moment Ling Lu finished speaking, the other end of the line fell into a long silence.
Mo Tingzhu almost suspected that Ling Lu was possessed by a ghost!
In his impression, Ling Lu was like a stray cat—he would tease her a bit when he was in a good mood, and toss her aside when he wasn't.
Whenever she was in front of him, Ling Lu always acted so submissive and accommodating.
Since when had she ever given him attitude?
What right did she have?
Ling Lin, however, was different. As the apple of the Ling family's eye, raised in the palm of their hands, Ling Lin was undoubtedly a proud and pretty porcelain doll. Even when she threw little tantrums or acted a bit spoiled, in his eyes, it was all adorable.
Who would ignore a pampered porcelain doll at home to favor a dirty stray cat?
Anyway, Mo Tingzhu wouldn't.
In his eyes, wherever Ling Lin was, Ling Lu wasn't even an option.
So upon hearing Ling Lu's barbed remarks, Mo Tingzhu's first reaction was annoyance, mixed with a nameless, indefinable emotion that left a thoroughly foul taste in his mouth.
"No, Ling Lu, are you out of your mind?"
"You brought this trouble on yourself by making mistakes and getting kicked out of the Ling family, yet you're taking it out on me? Haven't seen you in a few days, and you've really grown some spine, haven't you?"
Ling Lu let out a cold snort, ignoring his remarks, and said directly, "Let's cut ties. We're not contacting each other anymore."
The voice on the other end froze, disbelief coloring his tone. "What did you say?"
Ling Lu took a deep breath, her tone dripping with sarcasm.
"You know very well what the truth of the matter is. Stop playing dumb in front of me!"
"Over the past three years, just how many shameful schemes have you and Ling Lin pulled together?"
"I feel sick to my stomach just looking at you two now!"
In the past, Mo Tingzhu had repeatedly helped Ling Lin smear her reputation in front of the Ling Family Members.
And when Ling Lu ended up in her current predicament of being despised by the entire Ling family, Mo Tingzhu had certainly contributed plenty of effort.
In her past life, Ling Lu could never understand why Mo Tingzhu's attitude toward her had undergone such a drastic transformation.
But now, she didn't care in the slightest. Whoever they were, if they made her unhappy, she would kick them all out!
It was no big deal! She could break blood ties if she wanted to.
Let alone a mere Mo Tingzhu?
With that, Ling Lu hung up directly.
Listening to the busy tone coming from the receiver, Mo Tingzhu froze for two seconds, his mind going completely blank. Then, a surge of intense fury welled up in his chest, hot enough to scorch his vital organs!
He placed several calls in succession, but the line first showed as busy, and then as a disconnected number.
He was so angry he almost smashed his phone to pieces.
If this relationship was going to be ended, he was the one who should decide it!
What right did Ling Lu have to say no?
Yet Ling Lu no longer cared about his emotions in the slightest.
After hanging up on Mo Tingzhu, Ling Lu pulled out her SIM card, tossed it straight into the trash can, and made a clean break with her past.
Meanwhile, at the Ling Family Mansion.
Because of Ling Lu's earlier scene, the harmonious atmosphere at the dinner table was instantly ruined, leaving no one in the mood to eat.
After exchanging a few words, they each returned to their respective rooms.
In no time at all, only Ling Yeli was left in the cavernous living room.
His gaze fell upon the notebook left behind on the table—it was the one Ling Lu had left, which recorded every single expense she had incurred during her three years in the Ling family.
A sneer flashed across Ling Yeli's eyes.
"It took three years to spend just fifty thousand yuan of the Ling family's money? Only a ghost would believe that! I'd like to see what kind of nonsense Ling Lu made up in here."
Ling Yeli opened the notebook, and the delicate handwriting of a young woman greeted his eyes.
The thin notebook detailed every day's expenses in chronological order, scattered and varied, with room and board taking up the lion's share.
"Room and board is only six hundred a month?"
Ling Yeli's gaze paused at that, he raised an eyebrow, and then let out a cold laugh.
The Ling family villa was close to Jiangcheng's city center, a place where every inch of land was worth a fortune. Even renting a regular room couldn't possibly cost that little, right?
Ling Yeli's lips curled into a malicious smile.
Since Ling Lu wanted to sever ties with them, every penny she had spent in the Ling family over the past three years naturally had to be returned down to the last cent.
This ledger was clearly something she had fabricated.
Ever since the car accident, Ling Yeli had been repeatedly rebuffed by Ling Lu, and he was currently harboring a bellyful of anger with nowhere to vent.
Wasn't the opportunity here now?
He had already figured out how to use this matter to teach Ling Lu a lesson.
Making her cough up the money was secondary; he needed to vent his pent-up frustration!
Ling Yeli's thoughts shifted.
It would be best to go to her room and take a few photos as evidence, then slap them right across her face and see how she tried to argue her way out of it!
However, all of Ling Yeli's malicious ideas vanished into thin air the moment he figured out where Ling Lu's room was located.
On the second floor of the Ling family home, wasn't the room at the stairwell's corner just a storage closet?
How could that be Ling Lu's room?
"I asked you to lead me to Ling Lu's room, what are you bringing me here for?"
Ling Yeli's frigid voice made the servant beside him tremble all over.
"S-Second... Second Young Master, t-this... this really is Ling Lu's room. There's no mistake."
How was that possible?
Ling Yeli felt as though he had been struck over the head with a heavy club, his heart receiving a massive shock.
He summoned two more servants in succession, and they all gave the exact same story.
One servant might lie, but could a whole group of servants fabricate the same story together?
Ling Yeli clenched his fists tight, his breathing turning somewhat heavy.
If Ling Lu had lived right here for the past three years, how could none of them in the family have known?
No wonder back then, on the very first day Ling Lu came home, when Ling Lin went to call her down for dinner, she couldn't find her anywhere.
Previously, Ling Yeli had assumed that Ling Lu was just acting up on her first day home, deliberately trying to humiliate Ling Lin.
Father Ling had flown into a rage over it back then, immediately declaring that if Ling Lu didn't want to come down to eat, she needn't ever come down again.
For the three years following that, Ling Lu had never once appeared at the same dining table as the rest of the Ling Family Members.
So the truth of what happened back then was actually like this?
She wasn't throwing a temper tantrum; she simply hadn't known.
Ling Lu had clearly done nothing wrong, yet because of this incident, she hadn't appeared at the dinner table for three whole years...
At this thought, Ling Yeli felt as if something had stung his heart, followed by a piercing, needle-like pain.
"Open the door."
Hearing the Second Young Master's command, the few servants looked at each other, somewhat at a loss.
Hadn't everyone in the Ling family always treated Ling Lu like thin air? Even the household servants knew that Ling Lin was the only young miss of the Ling family. What was Second Young Master Ling up to making a fuss about this today?
"I said, open the door!"
Startled by the roar, the servant looked up to see the Second Young Master's gloomy expression, and in a flurry of panic, fished out the keys.
Ling Yeli pushed the door open, and upon taking in the scene inside, his eyes instantly grew somewhat bloodshot.
This place was smaller than the bathroom in his own room; it could only fit a small bed and a low cabinet, and even just that made the entire space look cramped to the extreme.
Ling Lu had lived in a place like this for three years?
As if an invisible hand were gripping his windpipe, Ling Yeli found breathing difficult.
Ling Lu hadn't lied, nor had she inflated her accounts. A storage room like this couldn't be rented out for three hundred a month outside, yet she had honestly calculated it at six hundred!
She didn't owe the Ling family anything—it was the Ling family that owed her!
But why had it come to this?!
She was the biological, eldest young miss of the Ling family! How had she been reduced to living like this? Living even worse than a servant?
While feeling deeply shocked, Ling Yeli also calmed down for the very first time, recalling every little detail concerning Ling Lu.
Yet, he quickly realized that in his memories, apart from scenes of himself standing on high, reprimanding Ling Lu over and over again and hurling vicious words at her, there was nothing else at all.
Even just moments ago, he had still been plotting to find an excuse to punish Ling Lu!
"Ling Yeli, you truly deserve to die!"
Regret and remorse twisted together in Ling Yeli's heart, a force striking the depths of his soul and making him wish he could immediately chase after Ling Lu and drag her back!
However, Ling Lu was already gone, and he had no idea where she might have gone.
When he dialed Ling Lu's number, it was already a disconnected line.